Fabrication11

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Fabrication 11: Cast
after Richard Serra's Torqued Torus Inversion
2008

2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets
2 bassoons
2 horns
2 trumpets
2 trombones
2 percussion
  1: crotales (high chromatic set), ocean drum,2 tam-tams (high and low), thunder sheet
  2: bass drum, crotales (high chromatic set), 4 nipple gongs (low to high = Bb, C#, Eb, G),
     suspended crash cymbal
strings

duration 6'

commissioned by The American Composers Forum
first performance:
Boston Modern Orchestral Project, cond. Gil Rose
2008 Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music / ICA Theater / September 21, 2008

RECORDING—first performance

  cd or digital download
of studio version
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and
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SCORE

PROGRAM NOTE
I typically write music with fairly involved programmatic intentions along with forms that echo or amplify them. However, I also enjoy music that simply unfolds a process or a ‘conceit’. Fabrication 11: Cast is a component part of a larger 32-movement cycle for various ensembles ranging from solos and duos to works for orchestra. These Fabrications explore more mechanical approaches to generating music. Each has a subtitle; a synonym of ‘fabrication’ which says something about the piece itself.

In order to fully experience Richard Serra’s huge ('cast') sculptures you have to walk through them, and this experience can be radically different each time you do so depending upon what route you take. In Torqued Torus Inversion Serra places two toruses next to each other, one of them inverted. Fabrication 11: Castfollows one possible route by gathering itself and leading into a first section of low dark sound pierced by brief high music, then out again. Next—into a second section of high bright sound (the inverted torus) interrupted by brief low music, and finally, once again, out.